'John Brown's Body' comes alive at Theatre in the Park

Wednesday

Jun 25, 2008 at 12:01 AMJun 25, 2008 at 4:33 PM

At Theatre in the Park, “John Brown’s Body” won’t really sound like an epic poem, but it is. It’s a musical, but not always in a burst-into-song sense. It’s a drama with two love stories. It’s a tragedy with a Greek chorus. It’s a readers’-theater presentation using three actors as storytellers.

Nick Rogers

At Theatre in the Park, “John Brown’s Body” won’t really sound like an epic poem, but it is. It’s a musical, but not always in a burst-into-song sense. It’s a drama with two love stories. It’s a tragedy with a Greek chorus. It’s a readers’-theater presentation using three actors as storytellers.

“I want to call it a ‘dramical,’” director John Woodruff says of his hybridization of Stephen Vincent Benet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic poem, its subsequent stage-play script and added-in music and songs from the Civil War-era of history that its content covers.

“It’s the approach of an epic poem, but people who profess not to like poetry will, I think, like this play,” Woodruff says. “And it’s the story of the Civil War as told through two couples. I think Benet merges his knowledge of history with development of characters so rich they pop out at you.”

The first-time director has longed to bring this project to a Springfield-area stage for several years, and he began combining different “Body” sources for his script last September. Along with Benet’s poem, he used a script for a staged dramatic reading that, on Broadway, starred Tyrone Power, Raymond Massey and Judith Anderson.

“I about burned out an album (of the Broadway recording) by listening to it. It’s a major thing to listen to,” Woodruff says.

When he set to building a working script, Woodruff held a copy of the poem that belonged to his brother at West Point circa 1951 in one hand, a stage script in the other and “did the college-student thing.” While there are full musical numbers featuring the entire cast, a lot of this version’s music serves to underscore dialogue, such as “Dixie” beneath a discussion of going to war.

“He’s woven a story that can be a dry read into something that will grab an audience,” says cast member Cynthia Higginson.

Assistant director Flynn Hanners, who consulted with Woodruff on the built script, says it’s important that the long-reaching story of “John Brown’s Body” flow and be followed.

“There are moments that grab you, and you have to follow them, and it gives you such a great feel for what was going on at the time,” Hanners says.

Benet’s poem is named after John Brown, the radical abolitionist captured, tried and hanged after an unsuccessful 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, W. Va. Most historians agree that Brown’s actions increased tensions leading to the southern states’ secession and, eventually, the Civil War.

Woodruff is using “scene vignettes” acted by the show’s chorus to visualize what his readers (Dennis Rendleman, Don Schneider and Linda Schneider) discuss — from the show’s 17th-century opening on a slave ship to a closing Confederate Army surrender at Appomattox Court House.

“I told those auditioning for the readers’ roles to focus on the interpretation of words, not so much memorizing lines, but picking out exact meanings of words to go back to,” Woodruff says.

“It covers a lot of material, emotion and experience that went into the war on both sides,” Rendleman says of the production. “At the same time, you don’t want to do a history pageant. Benet wanted more than something you’d only read; he wanted something to be orated at epic size. It’s not readily adaptable. It’s compelling but challenging, but opening that up is what the beast is.”

The readers’ work dovetails with two intimate, introspective tales of lovers torn apart by the war in different ways. Rendleman calls it the contrast of a snapshot to the readers’ giant mural.

“The show has a little bit darker presence than most Theatre in the Park shows,” Streder says.

Meanwhile, Clay Wingate (Caleb Klauser) is the scion of a Southern plantation family. His beloved, Sally Dupre (Higginson), enjoys society’s perks, if not its full inclusion because of her father’s past. While Clay is physically broken by war, Sally sees her charmed life radically change.

“The trick is not just to hash out a great story, but portray it physically as a movement from this enormous book to an intriguing play,” says Klauser of how Woodruff has combined myriad plots.

The husband-and-wife team of Don and Linda Schneider said Woodruff’s passion appealed to them.

“He’s taken a tall piece of theater and broken it into very interesting scenes,” Linda says.

“It really grasps the gallant desperation of warriors waiting to come home,” Don adds. “There was still some hope there. There are a variety of emotions at play, and so many different ones to ride.”

While Rendleman calls the Civil War’s disruption of America and individual lives “extreme beyond modern comprehension,” he, along with other cast members, sees thematic through-lines to the current Iraq war.

“I think there are parallels in wondering what we’re fighting for, what’s the issue, what it’s all about,” Rendleman says. “We understand it now in a historical perspective, but misunderstanding and confusion were part and parcel of the communication system back then.”

“There was a victory (in the Civil War), but everyone really lost,” Linda Schneider says. “The reality is that no one wins in a war, and that’s appropriate to our times. The more we think things change, they don’t change at all. No one is winning in Iraq. Men kill men and women are left to pick up the pieces. When will we ever learn?”

Audiences may find somber, emotional lessons about history in “John Brown’s Body,” but it’s helping to expand at least one cast member’s knowledge about the specifics.
Larison, who will be a junior at Rochester High School next year, participated in class discussions of the Civil War during her sophomore year.

“It’s definitely a new lesson learned for me, and I think audiences will come away with a whole new perspective of what the Civil War might be,” Larison says. “Especially here at New Salem, to take a look at Abraham Lincoln and John Brown, and what progress they brought to everyone’s lives, it’s important.”

Nick Rogers can be reached at (217) 747-9587 or nick.rogers@sj-r.com.

John Brown’s Body
Presented by the Theatre in the Park

When
8 p.m. Friday-Sunday and July 3-6; free pre-show entertainment begins at 7 p.m. each night

Where
Theatre in the Park, Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site near Petersburg

Tickets
$12 for adults, $10 for seniors and $7 for children under 12; tickets are available at the on-site box office or by calling 632-5440 or (800) 710-9290.

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